TV segment showed an image of the webcam video (which included the boy's genitals) and the boy's name was included, despite the family asking for anonymity.

OH FFS, how stupid can you be...

This has been a problem for a while, krebsonsecurity talks about it in a part of one post. Hackers where selling "girl slaves" with hacked cameras for extortion, shaming on just pictures. So people, please, tape up your webcams!

Webcam blackmail usually goes something like this: You are befriended online, perhaps via Facebook or a dating website; the criminal persuades you to do something lewd in front of the webcam; and then the criminal threatens to share a recording of those sexual acts unless you pay up.

I can certainly sympathize with the victims. People who are desperate for a connection with another will often do things without thinking them through.

At the same time, people really need to take a quick 10 second pause and really contemplate what might happen if what they're recording ends up publicly released. Also, that the Internet has made deceiving people infinitely easier due to the size of the audience they can reach from a single point, and anonymously. Ask yourself - is this person really who they claim?

At the same time, people really need to take a quick 10 second pause and really contemplate what might happen if what they're recording ends up publicly released.

And the reason this is a problem is that they think it would be a life-ruining disaster, rather than a matter for some brief joshing in the pub, if their friends and family learn that they masturbate. Insecure people are not going to say 'publish and be damned'.

I have no doubt that the number of cases is way higher considering the social repercussions that such exposure would cause to the victims. Especially in this day and age where people put so much value others opinion of them online. That and the fact that once its on the net it follows you functionally forever. It has got to be horrible to end up exposed online like that and being seen by prospective employers, peers and coworkers whenever they make a search on you online!

Tip: use black electrical tape. You can remove and reapply the same piece infinitely, and it removes without leaving marks. Also, it's nearly invisible on a black bezel.

In my experience, the sticky part of a sticky note works wonderfull. The one on my laptop has been sitting there for a year. Just cut out a square from the top part, make sure no plain paper is left and stick it on. Works best if the camera is flush with the bezel. A bump make it significantly harder

"you should go straight to your local police, who will "take your case seriously, will deal with it in confidence, and will not judge you for being in this situation.""

What a crock of shit. I have personally dealt with police after getting hacked with Ransomware. I wasn't expecting them to unleash watson on the case but what they told me was, "We don't know what it is, we don't have any resources to deal with it, you are the IT guy, you should have been more careful. " I know it's anecdotal evidence but I researched this further and most of the police departments are pitiful when dealing with cyber crime. FBI is your only hope and I gave up because I had backup for my servers.

I am not saying don't go to police. I am saying the police needs to drag itself into the 21st century and equip themselves to deal with this threat.

I know Ars isn't the New York Times and the tone and readership is more casual, but is it necessary to write "all sorts of crazy shit" instead of "all sorts of crazy acts"? The general tone and language of the article is very literate so this particularly sticks out.

I know, I know, I shouldn't be "that guy" and will be downvoted, but the world seems to moving more towards the bottom of the barrel, so let's try to slow the descent...

"you should go straight to your local police, who will "take your case seriously, will deal with it in confidence, and will not judge you for being in this situation.""

What a crock of shit. I have personally dealt with police after getting hacked with Ransomware. I wasn't expecting them to unleash watson on the case but what they told me was, "We don't know what it is, we don't have any resources to deal with it, you are the IT guy, you should have been more careful. " I know it's anecdotal evidence but I researched this further and most of the police departments are pitiful when dealing with cyber crime. FBI is your only hope and I gave up because I had backup for my servers.

I am not saying don't go to police. I am saying the police needs to drag itself into the 21st century and equip themselves to deal with this threat.

Well, sounds like you are in the US - maybe the experience is different over there? This story pertains to the UK.

I'm assuming from the tone of the NCA (the UK equivalent of the FBI) that the UK local police have been briefed on this, and other digital crime stuff.

I know Ars isn't the New York Times and the tone and readership is more casual, but is it necessary to write "all sorts of crazy shit" instead of "all sorts of crazy acts"? The general tone and language of the article is very literate so this particularly sticks out.

I know, I know, I shouldn't be "that guy" and will be downvoted, but the world seems to moving more towards the bottom of the barrel, so let's try to slow the descent...

TV segment showed an image of the webcam video (which included the boy's genitals) and the boy's name was included, despite the family asking for anonymity.

OH FFS, how stupid can you be...

This has been a problem for a while, krebsonsecurity talks about it in a part of one post. Hackers where selling "girl slaves" with hacked cameras for extortion, shaming on just pictures. So people, please, tape up your webcams!

"you should go straight to your local police, who will "take your case seriously, will deal with it in confidence, and will not judge you for being in this situation.""

What a crock of shit. I have personally dealt with police after getting hacked with Ransomware. I wasn't expecting them to unleash watson on the case but what they told me was, "We don't know what it is, we don't have any resources to deal with it, you are the IT guy, you should have been more careful. " I know it's anecdotal evidence but I researched this further and most of the police departments are pitiful when dealing with cyber crime. FBI is your only hope and I gave up because I had backup for my servers.

I am not saying don't go to police. I am saying the police needs to drag itself into the 21st century and equip themselves to deal with this threat.

Well, sounds like you are in the US - maybe the experience is different over there? This story pertains to the UK.

I'm assuming from the tone of the NCA (the UK equivalent of the FBI) that the UK local police have been briefed on this, and other digital crime stuff.

I know Ars isn't the New York Times and the tone and readership is more casual, but is it necessary to write "all sorts of crazy shit" instead of "all sorts of crazy acts"? The general tone and language of the article is very literate so this particularly sticks out.

I know, I know, I shouldn't be "that guy" and will be downvoted, but the world seems to moving more towards the bottom of the barrel, so let's try to slow the descent...

What a crock of shit. I have personally dealt with police after getting hacked with Ransomware. I wasn't expecting them to unleash watson on the case but what they told me was, "We don't know what it is, we don't have any resources to deal with it, you are the IT guy, you should have been more careful. "

To be fair, ransomware is very distinct from sexual blackmail; you are unlikely to commit suicide due to the fear of social ostracism from data loss. Sex crimes against the vulnerable get to go into a different and more-taken-seriously box whether computers are involved or not.

The article did not detail the method payment for these sextortion cases. If anonymizing technology is involved, then I asked why is society uncritical of its deployment and use? The growing number of cases should be cause for concern.

TV segment showed an image of the webcam video (which included the boy's genitals) and the boy's name was included, despite the family asking for anonymity.

OH FFS, how stupid can you be...

This has been a problem for a while, krebsonsecurity talks about it in a part of one post. Hackers where selling "girl slaves" with hacked cameras for extortion, shaming on just pictures. So people, please, tape up your webcams!

Tip: use black electrical tape. You can remove and reapply the same piece infinitely, and it removes without leaving marks. Also, it's nearly invisible on a black bezel.

Yeah did you read the article?Not useful when the vast majority of the cases are people willingly connecting and not thinking about the fact what they are doing would be put out to the rest of the internet.This is not RATs secretly recording people.

TV segment showed an image of the webcam video (which included the boy's genitals) and the boy's name was included, despite the family asking for anonymity.

OH FFS, how stupid can you be...

This has been a problem for a while, krebsonsecurity talks about it in a part of one post. Hackers where selling "girl slaves" with hacked cameras for extortion, shaming on just pictures. So people, please, tape up your webcams!

It's easy to judge and hindsight is 20/20. I just want to know if you were this intelligent when you were 14. Did you have same amount of awareness and never fucked up at that age?

Not saying that I was intelligent at 14 or never made an arse of myself, but even at that age I'd have been suspicious as all hell about some random person on the internet contacting me in order to obtain compromising images of me.

Edit to pre-empt inevitible "But they'd pretend to be a girl befriending you first etc etc etc": I'd have been even more suspicious in that circumstance.

"you should go straight to your local police, who will "take your case seriously, will deal with it in confidence, and will not judge you for being in this situation.""

What a crock of shit. I have personally dealt with police after getting hacked with Ransomware. I wasn't expecting them to unleash watson on the case but what they told me was, "We don't know what it is, we don't have any resources to deal with it, you are the IT guy, you should have been more careful. " I know it's anecdotal evidence but I researched this further and most of the police departments are pitiful when dealing with cyber crime. FBI is your only hope and I gave up because I had backup for my servers.

I am not saying don't go to police. I am saying the police needs to drag itself into the 21st century and equip themselves to deal with this threat.

Well, ransomware presents itself as an encrypted hard drive with a message and a bitcoin address. You'd have to be pretty savvy to do anything with that. In these extortion cases, it's almost tangential that it happened on a computer. There is a load of evidence and they can treat it like almost any other investigation, especially if the victim still has communication with the criminal.

I don't think people realize how this can work sometimes. I'll fully admit I had to deal with the exact thing before, and regardless of how much you say you won't panic, the first thought is to panic. You just think to yourself about what the hell are you going to do. After a few moments I came to my senses, got all the information, went to the FBI Cybercrime reporting website and reported.

Now the kicker of the deal is, normally people wouldn't do things like that, and they talk about scammers and all that being obvious. In my case it was someone I met on a dating site, and we had been talking back and forth for about 2 to 3 months by the time the incident happened. Had talked on the phone, talked on Skype many times, nothing ever seemed out of the ordinary. Then one day BAM! It isn't like it is always an obvious thing coming. There are the ones that are definitely obvious, but not all of them are which is something I think a lot of people take for granted in stories like this jumping to the conclusion that if it was them they would have known. I personally would have thought I would have known, but I got duped just as well.

Myself, I just decided that plastering me naked all over the internet wasn't worth the hassle or stress that the situation was trying to demand on my time. But not everyone is as indifferent as I am at times, and I can fully understand the absolute dread and horror that some people can feel, especially at the initiation of the blackmail. The change in atmosphere is so drastic that your mind has no idea what just happened, and I don't think it sinks in on most people until well after it happens.

I have no doubt that the number of cases is way higher considering the social repercussions that such exposure would cause to the victims. Especially in this day and age where people put so much value others opinion of them online. That and the fact that once its on the net it follows you functionally forever. It has got to be horrible to end up exposed online like that and being seen by prospective employers, peers and coworkers whenever they make a search on you online!

It's not just that. Western society in general seems to have a rather puritanical stance on sex. I mean, I lived in a town where they passed an ordinance making erections illegal in strip clubs (I always wondered who was going to enforce that - talk about copping a feel ). Think about that for a second. Why would a man go to a strip club if not for the purpose of titillation?

More important is that the release of such a video can have an impact on employment opportunities. Just look up cases of teachers fired because they posted a pic to their Facebook page of themselves in a bikini (Olivia Sprauer is one example). So there's more to it than just embarrassment or fear of negative opinions.

The article did not detail the method payment for these sextortion cases. If anonymizing technology is involved, then I asked why is society uncritical of its deployment and use? The growing number of cases should be cause for concern.

Holy shit, dude, we get it. You think anonymity turns people criminal.

Fine, then, you can go first. What's your real name? Address? All handles used on all other fora where you have posted in the past?

TV segment showed an image of the webcam video (which included the boy's genitals) and the boy's name was included, despite the family asking for anonymity.

OH FFS, how stupid can you be...

This has been a problem for a while, krebsonsecurity talks about it in a part of one post. Hackers where selling "girl slaves" with hacked cameras for extortion, shaming on just pictures. So people, please, tape up your webcams!

"If you've seen the recent season of Black Mirror, the episode Shut Up And Dance explores one particularly gruesome variant: a criminal hacks into the protagonist's computer and records a video of him masturbating and then uses that video to coerce him into doing all sorts of crazy shit."

Without offering any spoilers, those who've watched this episode to completion should know that wasn't his real motivation for doing all that crazy shit.

The only thing you can do about this is continue to spread awareness and educate those you care about around you to practice safe tech. There's way more people out there which have been victimized in some regard due to the internet's ability to conceal ill intended individual's identities than will ever be acknowledged.

At the same time, people really need to take a quick 10 second pause and really contemplate what might happen if what they're recording ends up publicly released.

And the reason this is a problem is that they think it would be a life-ruining disaster, rather than a matter for some brief joshing in the pub, if their friends and family learn that they masturbate. Insecure people are not going to say 'publish and be damned'.

For most normal people yes, but I saw the news report (newsnight or C4 news, can't remember) where they interviewed one of these blackmailers. One thing I do remember -they said "we see these guys on social media, with a Quran in one hand and an AK in the other preaching religious stuff and you think, naaa, he'll never go for it... but they turn out to be the easiest to hook".

Tip: use black electrical tape. You can remove and reapply the same piece infinitely, and it removes without leaving marks. Also, it's nearly invisible on a black bezel.

Actually, not all electrical tape is the same. Some will leave a residue after a period of time, or if exposed to heat.

A safer bet is painter's tape, which is explicitly designed to be removed, but usually it only comes in blue or white.

Would it kill the companies to have a physical slider? They used to, before people (all Apple designers) demanded our screens be 18 molecules thick. I'd give up an extra .25mm to have one again.

Personally I'd prefer a mechanical switch that physically creates an open in the circuit powering both the camera and mic (because even with the cam taped, someone could still record any audio your mic picks up). It's simple, can't be defeated by any software hack, and dirt cheap to implement.

Tip: use black electrical tape. You can remove and reapply the same piece infinitely, and it removes without leaving marks. Also, it's nearly invisible on a black bezel.

Actually, not all electrical tape is the same. Some will leave a residue after a period of time, or if exposed to heat.

A safer bet is painter's tape, which is explicitly designed to be removed, but usually it only comes in blue or white.

Would it kill the companies to have a physical slider? They used to, before people (all Apple designers) demanded our screens be 18 molecules thick. I'd give up an extra .25mm to have one again.

No, no no no no no, no. See, if we included that device on our new computers, it would cost more. A couple cents for the part, a couple million to modify production of the bezels, a couple million to set up the warranty support on it, and in 4% of use cases, the plastic, which protrudes further than the bezel, causes this really unattractive scuff on the bottom of the plastic casing, just below the touchpad buttons, after five or six years of use. That's bad for the brand.